Hearts and the highway

"Hearts and the Highway" by Cyrus Townsend Brady is a romance novel written in the early 20th century. Set in the wake of the Monmouth Rebellion, it follows Lady Katharine Clanranald as she disguises herself to intercept a royal courier, Sir Hugh Richmond, in a desperate bid to save her father from execution. Expect a swashbuckling road tale of disguise, derring-do, and crackling chemistry between a bold Scottish heroine and the honorable soldier she must outwit. The opening of Hearts and the Highway shows Lady Katharine learning that her father’s death warrant is en route and deciding to stop the King’s messenger herself. Disguised in her late brother’s clothes, she rides to an inn, befriends Sir Hugh under an alias, then at dawn disables his pistols and ambushes him on a wooded road; both are wounded, but she captures his dispatch bag and burns the warrant. Weak from blood loss, she is found by the revived Sir Hugh, who discovers she is a woman, tends her wound with rough kindness, and declares her under arrest for treason. He commandeers a coach toward Edinburgh, while she pins her hopes on the delay she has won to reach the King and plead for mercy.

Summary written by Project Gutenberg, by machine.